Thomas Breen Photo
Cheri Quickmire at a protect-Mueller investigation rally last fall on the New Haven Green.
A years-long quest to expand voting fell short again. The next morning, Cheri Quickmire focused on another way to get more people to the polls — an idea that still has a chance of becoming law this year.
Quickmire is the executive director of Common Cause Connecticut. She spends her days advocating for making it easier to register to and cast votes, and for expanding democracy in general.
Her group’s agenda has included adding Connecticut to the list of 39 other states that allow early voting — meaning the ability to cast regular ballots (as opposed to absentee mail-in ballots) before Election Day.
A resolution to put that question to voters in a constitutional amendment referendum seemed on its way to becoming law this session after a 125 – 24 bipartisan approval vote in the state House of Representatives. But then Wednesday night the State Senate passed the measure by only a 23 – 12 vote — under the 75 percent majority needed to put the question to voters on the 2020 ballot. That means advocates, who previously came up short on a version of the resolution in 2014, will have to wait two more years to try again. (Click here for more details about the process and Republican’s objections in a story by CT News Junkie’s Christine Stuart.)
“Our democracy is in some peril right now,” Quickmire said Thursday morning during an appearance on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program. “We’re stronger as a nation, we’re stronger as a state if more people participate” in elections.
To that end, Quickmire argued for the passage of Senate Bill 24, which would direct Connecticut to register people automatically when they conduct transactions at motor vehicle offices and state social services offices.
Connecticut currently has a “motor voter” law under which people have the option of registering to vote when they renew licenses or register vehicles. The new law would automatically register those folks — and include social services recipients, many of whom might not own vehicles — while allowing them to opt out.
The law would aim to include 250,000 eligible voters in the state who currently are not registered, Quickmire said.
“We think that’s an enormous number that should not be ignored,” Quickmire said.
The bill has made it out of the legislature’s Government, Administration & Elections Committee with a favorable vote. Its fate will depend on whether advocates like Quickmire can convince the Senate and then House leaders to put it up for a vote over the next month before the legislature adjourns.
Click on the video below to watch Quickmire discuss the automatic registration proposal and other election issues, including New Haven’s perennial poll problems, on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven.”
The article is slightly misleading. The advocates will not "have to wait two more years to try again". They can, and undoubtedly will, try again next year. What was lost was the opportunity to have the referendum question appear on the 2020 ballot. Assuming the resolution passes the House and Senate next year by a simple majority (which I think is very likely), the question will appear on the 2022 ballot.
I think the opt-out registration bill makes sense. But Republicans have every incentive to run the clock. And the bill has a modest, but non-zero, price tag which could complicate things.